Four Lines Some Waiting or Spinoffs/Shared universe?

Hi guys,

Im currently writing (or attempting to) a story in the form of a tv show thats set in a sortof twenty minutes in the future/alternate history world thats slightly technologically more advanced but set 'now' (2010 ish).

Anyways my story starts with a group of characters in the US, revolving around the CIA/FBI vs terrorism sortof stuff, but I also want to show storylines set in other countries of this universe ive created, not sure if they will even be of the same genre or crossover a hell of a lot with my US based storylines at all.

But i'm wondering if those ideas might be better as their own spinoff stories or sperate entities that hint at having a shared universe rather than trying to juggle 4 completely different locales/genres that share the same universe in my main story.

Ive been looking at a few shows that have attempted something like this, Alias and similar mission based shows travelled all over the globe, Heroes had a few random storylines where cast herding was in effect in different parts of the world, and other shows juggle unrelated storylines, but usually theyre very close geographically (The Wire for example).

I guess the thing there is too, if I make the scope too large in the one story with loads and loads of characters, wildly different genres (having a teen drama storyline in London, next scene trying to stop a train bombing in Australia, to a courtroom scene in Chicago for example) and so many main locations, it might be trying to cover too much and none of my characters storylines or themes may have enough focus to develop well, and also be just too hella confusing for the reader I dunno.

I'm just tossing up a few ways on how I could write this 'world' and different stories in it I guess, sorry if I made not much sense, but any opinions would be great. :)

edited 22nd May '12 2:19:35 PM by DarylMemetic

Stick with one story. Keep it simple. You are going to overwhelm yourself if you aim too big. Once you've finished one story, you can explore other options in your universe.